On my ad-free cooking blog I only post recipes that people tell me they love – some are healthy, some are not, but they are all delicious! I record these recipes because I love to cook, and people tell me they appreciate looking at and trying out my recipes. Please write a comment if you have any thoughts about my posts so I know if I should keep experimenting with new recipes, documenting them, and paying to keep this blog advertisement-free. Thanks for the feedback! Enjoy!

chopped walnuts

I can’t really believe I haven’t posted this one before. I’ve been making it for years, and it is a favourite for many people. The recipe comes from the Rebar Cookbook, which was put out by a great little vegetarian restaurant in Victoria, BC. There is a bit of work involved in this cake, but just chopping and grating a few things, nothing too technical. It also makes nice cupcakes or a 9 x 13 cake.

Butter and flour two 8″ round cake pans. I like to cut out circles of parchment paper to fit into the bottom of the pans for easy removal. Preheat the oven to 350F.

Combine the grated carrot, pineapple, coconut, dates and chopped walnuts in a large bowl.

In a mixing bowl beat the sugars with the eggs. Add the vanilla and beat on high-speed until the volume has tripled. With the beater on low-speed, pour the oil in slowly to blend it in.

Combine the remaining dry ingredients and gently stir them into the egg mixture. Fold in the carrot mixture. Divide the batter among the cake pans and smooth the tops.

Bake for 30 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Let the cakes sit in the pan for about 10 minutes, then run a knife around the edge and invert onto cooling racks.

After the cakes have cooled, prepare the icing. Begin by melting the white chocolate in a double boiler over medium heat and set aside to cool a little while you do the next part.

Beat the room temperature cream cheese on high-speed until smooth and fluffy, then blend in the vanilla and butter. Add the melted chocolate to the cream cheese mixture and mix on high until smooth and fluffy (I added the chocolate when it was too warm, and I couldn’t get to the fluffy stage. I put it in the fridge for 10 minutes and that solved the problem). Slowly add the icing sugar, stopping to scrape down the sides now and then. Beat on high until the icing is light and fluffy; about 3 minutes.

Spread the bottom layer of the cake with one-third of the icing, smoothing it evenly to the edges. Chill for 10 minutes. Place the top cake layer on and frost the top and sides. I garnished it with white chocolate curls, but my next choice was to make a border of chopped walnuts around the edge. Toasted coconut or a decorative piped border are other options.

Store refrigerated where it will keep for up to 4 days.

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For Christmas I received a huge bag of chocolate truffles – so yummy, but even after sharing, way too many to eat. So I pulled out Mom’s old faithful chocolate chip oatmeal cookie recipe. Growing up we didn’t have many sweets, but often we were lucky enough to get some of these. Mom’s original recipe called for margarine, but I’ve used butter, which I’m sure she would also do nowadays. These turn out crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside – the perfect oatmeal cookie, if you ask me. . . and my siblings, and all the neighbourhood kids from way back when. Back then I thought it was unfair that the other kids always had Ding-dongs and Twinkies, but of course I now realize that I was the lucky one, to get home-baked cookies!